1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a document management device and a document management method for managing documents circulated to readers via network and additional information added to the documents by readers.
2. Description of the Related Art
There are proposed various circulation systems for circulating document data automatically via network and electronic approval systems. Further, in a work flow of document deliberation, there is a usage example in which a person requesting deliberation circulates a deliberation document to readers, and each of them writes comments in the original document and the comments are gathered by a handwriting recognition system. As a technique for recognizing comments written in the original document as described above, there is one in which image data of the original electronic file is processed to be expanded and is aligned with a retouched printed matter, and difference information is extracted by exclusive OR, and the original document data and the difference information are saved, as shown in Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication No. 2004-341914. Further, there is a technique in which code information is read out from a printed matter so as to read out original data, and a handwritten memo which is a difference between the original data and the printed matter is extracted, and output can be performed by selecting the memo only, the original only or both, as shown in Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication No. 2004-80601. Further, there is a technique in which handwritten data and print data are synthesized and displayed, and the handwritten data is edited on the display screen, and the print data and the handwritten data synthesized are stored while being associated to each other, as shown in Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication No. 2004-328451. Further, there is a technique in which a file name is written by hand in a file name field of a manuscript and when scanning is performed, an electronic file is automatically created with the file name, as shown in Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication No. 2002-74321.
However, the conventional techniques described above are separate systems such as a circulation system and a handwriting recognition system, so it is required to configure a system by installing, into a PC, a separate dedicated application for each. Therefore, preparation for using them actually is troublesome. Further, since they are separate independent systems, initial registration and progress management of documents must be performed separately, which causes a number of work units. In addition, a user in charge thereof must handle corresponding to each system and application, which causes a problem of bad operability.
In the usage example in the conventional technique described above, if comments added to a circulated document are extracted and managed corresponding to the document, there may be a method in which all comments are managed by being corresponded to the original document.
In such a case, however, if a circulation mode in which the original document is circulated by a plurality of group units, all comments are corresponded to the original document, not depending on each separate group. This causes a problem that each of the comments cannot be classified that from which group it comes from, so management of comments is ineffective. Further, if management is performed to each document circulated, management becomes complicated and the management cannot be unified.